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@JessTheUnstill I'm not sure what is it, but tech just feels so polluted over the last 10 years.

Seems like more often than not, people online are just talking about how to make money quickly with tech and how to climb that tech career to make that sweet sweet Meta/Google SWE pay.

What happened to people who actually want to be in tech because they love computers and technology and/or wanting to build something cool even if you can't make money out of it.

I mean, doctor has long been one of the standard paths to an upper middle class or petite boug life. In fact, doctor salary has comparatively gotten worse with hospitals demanding even more patients per day, insurance reimbursement dropping, hospital administration and shareholders slurping up a bigger and bigger chunk of the money, and having to do more and more unpaid work for pre-authorization and fighting insurance companies to actually cover the healthcare their patients need.

But you are right. What sort of kid who likes computers actually dreams of building tech that spies on people and sells them ads? They want to make games. Or make even better computers. Or fun apps that let them do things with their friends. But instead, ever since at least the dot com boom, the whole field has just become one of the dwindling pathways for someone to actually make a decent salary.

@cwicseolfor @oxtyped

@JessTheUnstill @cwicseolfor

As a kid in the early 90s, I always dreamt of being able to write software and use technology to do something useful for society.

And now that I'm middle-aged, jaded and left full-time employment to work on my own projects, looking at the community online, its hard not to feel like I'm stupid for leaving money on the table and for burning through my savings for my "fun projects".

I just want to build software with friends, do some good, and live a simple life.

Yeah, I've been lucky enough to get a well paying tech job, but work burns me out so badly I can't get any joy from techy hobby projects anymore. My dream is that I can semi-retire early and then be able to take lower paying jobs that allow me to feel a bit more like I'm doing interesting and useful things that just kinda pay the bills for my already pretty frugal life for the rest of my career.

@oxtyped @cwicseolfor

@JessTheUnstill @cwicseolfor I hope you'll get to do that soon!

I'm not sure if I'm making the right move now by leaving employment with mortgage to still pay, but the alternative of continuing to work just burned me out too much.

All I can do now is to manage my expenses and try and find meaningful small independent tech work to try and get by while working on my projects.

Its really hard and terrifying, but I really cannot imagine going back to work again. I hope I will be able to make it.

@oxtyped @JessTheUnstill The burnout and the moral injury are a much greater danger than people give credit for - it's still higher up the pyramid of needs than food and shelter, but feeling like you're hurting people and working against your values is a lot worse than "not self-actualizing," it can really wreck your brain and by extension your body. I ended up (temporarily... I think) semi-disabled over that.

@oxtyped @JessTheUnstill Living to work rather than working to live is the goal we should be striving for for everyone to access. While it's not accessible to everyone right now, adding frugality to a tech salary absent major US-style health expenses, it's still pretty attainable. Being able to then use that to pay it forward/ push the ladder down sounds like good living.

I just wish my country's gov would let people go on with good work instead of spending productive time putting out fires.